Various methods for informing flow information such as ever-changing fresh news articles to users have been proposed. Among them, for example, news programs on television and radio are one of the oldest and prevalent information presenting methods.
In these news programs, a news caster reads out a manuscript to convey information to users. Information is conveyed by voice, thus making it possible for a user to hear information while carrying out cleaning or driving a car, for example, and the need for monopolizing attention from the user all the time thus is eliminated. Also, in television, visuals are used to provide information more effectively.
On the other hand, communication technologies such as computers and Internet have been developed, and new information presenting methods such as home pages describing the latest news and services for distributing news through e-mails have been proposed. These information presenting methods have features missing in television and radio in the sense that they have on-demand natures allowing information to be provided whenever it is needed, and interactive natures enabling a user to indicate desired information by news genre and the like, not just receiving information one-sidedly. Also, since static images and moving images can be treated, it is possible to provide information more effectively by appealing to visual.
However, news programs on television and radio lack on-demand natures allowing information to be provided whenever it is needed, and interactive natures allowing an audience to indicate desired information in accordance with a news genre and the like, because their broadcast time is fixed and the order of the contents of news to be conveyed is fixed by a broadcasting station.
On the other hand, supply of news by homepages describing news articles, services of news articles through e-mails, and so on leads to a high barrier for people who cannot operate personal computers well. Also, since information is supplied only by texts, a user should “read” the information by paying attention to the screen all the time for receiving the information, leading to lack of convenience of receiving information while for example carrying out cleaning or driving a car at the same time.